Leo’s Mama/Sister/Daughter?

My friend Elissa recently ran into a dog that looked a lot like Leo. She sent me an email with a photo she took of the dog:

“The pic didn't turn out very good. The doggy was in the shade because she was hot ;)

I wanted to get another one but I think the guy thought I was hitting on him. He kept bringing up his wife. This dog--her name was Bear!--looked just like Leo. She was 12 and even had his little funny stiff walk and his grey hair (and eye boogers!) This guy said they are smooth chows and have much better personalities than other chows. Their bodies are also built differently. Maybe it is Leo's mama? Or his sister? The guy got her from a flea market--he didn't say where--and he wasn't sure where she was originally from.”

First, the detail about the wife cracked me up. Second, it blew me away how much this dog Bear really does look like Leo! The shape of her muzzle, her nose, her purple tongue and her eyes are all similar to Leo’s. She’s even graying in the same areas as Leo (though Leo is admittedly more gray).

I wish the guy knew where Bear originally hailed from. Could it really be a long-lost relative of Leo’s? Maybe. I was told at the Humane Society that Leo is at least nine years old, though probably older (they said it was hard to determine how much wear and tear was the result of age vs. surviving a hurricane). If Bear really is 12 years old, I’m thinking Leo must be at least her age (eeek). Maybe she’s Leo’s sister, or Leo’s daughter. Only genetic testing could tell for sure. I’ll have to settle with curious speculation.

A Face Only a Mother Could Love

Ripple has gone home to her people and life has returned to normal for Leo. Normal, except for that hole in the side of his face.

One morning I was walking both doggies when Leo snatched up something dead lying beneath a giant tree. I didn’t get a chance to see what it was; all I could see were dangling appendages hanging out the sides of his mouth that slightly resembled a plucked chicken.

I yanked on his leash and ordered him to drop it. Nothing doing. He rabidly chewed and swallowed, the sound of crunching, cracking bones turning my stomach. And then suddenly he collapsed on his side.

“My God the chicken corpse is killing him!” I thought as I gasped. Then just as quickly he hopped back up and went about sniffing around for more. The walk was officially over in my mind, and we headed homeward.

When I told my husband about Leo’s snack and subsequent collapse, he laughed. “Maybe he was overcome with pleasure?” he suggested. I wasn’t buying it.

The next morning, my husband and I were getting ready for our four-day road trip to Vancouver, B.C. It was to be our “real” honeymoon trip (as opposed to the practice one we’d had immediately after the wedding). We had a rental car to pick up and hotel reservations already made.

I was about to take the doggies out for a quick last walk before hitting the road when my husband asked, “What’s this on Leo’s face?”

I ran my hand over his muzzle to find a giant lump, the size of a baseball, protruding from the right side. How didn’t I notice this before? And when did it first appear?

We loaded him in the car and drove to the vet. I told the receptionist the chicken corpse story, relating the crunching of the bones and Leo’s sudden collapse. They were busy that day, she said, and would hold him until a doctor had a moment to examine him. That was at 10:00 a.m.

We drove home and fretted over whether to delay the rental car or cancel it altogether. At 1:30 p.m., the vet called. The bump was an abscess, she said, and she’d have to anesthetize Leo to examine him further and see where it originated—inside or outside of his mouth—and then drain it. He would probably be ready for pick around 6:30 p.m.

And so our road trip to Vancouver quickly became a foolish endeavor. Leave the next day to drive all day, spend one day in Vancouver, then drive back? I cancelled the hotel reservation; they charged me a $97 cancellation fee. Meanwhile, my husband had a disappointment meltdown and stormed out of the house.

At 6:30 we arrived to pick him up. Turns out, he had punctured the inside of his mouth with a bone from the mysterious chicken corpse and it had gotten infected and formed the abscess. The vet tech brought him in with a drainage tube sticking out of the side and bottom of his face; she instructed me to flush it twice a day (fat chance of Leo holding still for that, I thought). He was still very groggy from the anesthesia and insisted on collapsing into a deep sleep rather than walk, so my husband carried him out to the car, and then into the house once we arrived at home. (Oh, and they charged me $400; this was turning out to be a very expensive non-vacation experience for me.)

The next morning, I put the dreaded cone on him so he couldn’t scratch the tube out of place. He was up and around as usual, growling at Ripple to back off. By the end of the day, the inside of the cone was already reeking of rotten flesh; I was eager to take him back to the vet to have the drainage tube removed.

And the following day, off came the cone and out came the tube. Leo will be on antibiotics for two weeks or more. And the fur on the right side of his face will take awhile to fill in again.

He’ll also be wearing a muzzle for our walks from now on. No more dining on cat poop, road kill or mysterious chicken corpses for him.

A Houseguest

We have a houseguest this week: she’s a nine-year-old blue heeler/pit bull mix named Ripple. Her people are on the East Coast for a wedding, so Ripple is staying with us for awhile.

Leo and Ripple met two years ago on a camping trip. Their introduction took place with little fanfare—some sniffing in various areas, some circling. Then they pretty much ignored each other for the rest of the trip.

Leo has been to Ripple’s house a couple of times, and Ripple has visited us on several occasions. For the most part, they have continued to ignore each other.

Until this time, that is. Once it became clear to Leo that Ripple wasn’t here for just a visit--that she was actually going to sleep over and eat her meals here and join him on his walks--then things abruptly changed. He became hyper-aware of Ripple’s every move, and of the brand-new, 15-pound bag of dog food that accompanied her.

On her first morning with us, I put Leo out back and busted open Ripple’s bag of dog food. Rather than pounce on the small bowl of food that I placed on the floor (as Leo would have done), Ripple made a cautious approach to the bowl. She sniffed the food and with her nose, ever so daintily rearranged the nuggets in the bowl. Then she nudged the bowl around, here and there, pausing to survey her progress, as though trying for a more aesthetically pleasing placement. My husband’s flip flops were nearby, and she nudged those around as well, finally arranging them in an L shape around the bowl. Then she deserted the whole project and went to the living room.

I stood back and watched in amazement. Leo would have emptied the bowl instantly.

“Ok, Ripple,” I announced as I grabbed her dish and put it on the counter. “We’ll try this again after our walk.”

Walking the two dogs together was a challenge, to say the least. Ripple is quick and limber and focused on getting ahead; Leo pokes along, stopping to sniff and/or pee on every tree/bush/garbage can/object that cries out to be peed on that we pass. The worst is when they decide to go in different directions and I find myself tangled in crisscrossing leashes, or when they both lunge for a nearby cat. But with Ripple at the helm, encouraging progress and efficiency, Leo was inspired to try and keep up, and we covered our usual distance in half the time.


When we returned, it was time to try breakfast with both dogs. I shut Ripple in the living room with her bowl of previously arranged food, and fed Leo at his usual spot in the kitchen. At first, he was distracted—mesmerized, even--by the now opened bag of dog food standing nearby. After inhaling his raw chicken patty, he returned his attention to the dog food bag, gazing lovingly at it.

I went to check on Ripple. Her bowl was empty save for five nuggets. “Good job, Ripple!” I grabbed her bowl and put it on the dining room table. With the door now open, Leo came rushing in and sniffed around the table. He could smell those five remaining nuggets and it was driving him mad. When Ripple came by to see what all the sniffing was about, Leo lunged and snarled at her, telling her to back off.

I scolded him and he returned to his vigil by the dog food bag in the kitchen. At last glance, he was sitting and staring at the bag. I went outside to trim my roses and came back in to find Leo’s head buried deep inside the dog food bag, a muffled sound of inhalation and snorting and crunching taking place inside.

I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out. Ripple quietly made her way into the kitchen and watched with a forlorn expression as I scolded him.

I put the bag of food on the kitchen table and went about making my breakfast. Leo stood watch nearby and when Ripple came by for some affection, Leo warned her again to back off by pouncing on her with some prehistoric barks and snarls.

Is this what it’s like to have kids who fight constantly?

Hair Limbo

As luck would have it, after I completed The Itchies Trilogy, Leo had a flare-up of hotspots and scratching. I thought that maybe a bath in his special soothing shampoo might offer him some relief, and decided that a haircut would make it easier for me to keep the fur out of the hotspots—and keep them clean. So I made an appointment at the groomers.

I instructed the gal to give him a brush cut, thinking that if the fur wasn’t shaved down to the skin that it would be less irritating, and that Leo wouldn’t feel so defiled afterwards. I was wrong (at least about the Leo feeling defiled part).

When I picked him up from the groomers, he gave me nary a glance as he hustled out the door. Where was the usual tail wagging, head bobbing, “Am I glad to see you!” greeting? Once outside, he took a long, self-satisfied pee on the side of the building and then hopped in the back seat for the ride home.

I offered him a bowl of water; he wasn’t interested. I petted him and told him he looked very handsome (this was a lie; with the fur so close to his body, his large head is accentuated and his ears stick out, making him look like a fruit bat). He ignored me and looked out the window, his nose pressed between the window glass and the door casing, fervently sniffing, sniffing, sniffing.

We rode home like this; me occasionally shooting glances in the rearview mirror and cooing at him, him ignoring me, the wind of the moving car making his protruding nose run all over the glass (my husband wouldn’t be happy about this; I was driving his car and the window looked like a dozen first graders had sneezed on it, then taken up a finger painting project).

When we got home, he made a beeline for the house. It was like he was a teenager who had just gotten a bad haircut and didn’t want any of his buddies to see him (a teenager who would wear a baseball hat until his hair grew out again).

I can feel Leo’s pain. I’m in hair limbo myself. My hair is coming in gray—no, white, actually—and I’m tired of trying to hide it. My hair first started going white when I was in my mid-20s. Everyone in my mom’s side of the family grays early; I have two male cousins just one year older than me who have heads full of shocking gray/white hair.

So what to do? Continue coloring it? Or let it go? At the moment I have about an inch of white on top of my head, followed by an auburn color that fades into an orangey red at the ends. It’s truly awful. I wear a hat whenever I leave the house.

Should I give in and color those roots again? Or should I color it all a lighter shade (blonde?) to blend with the white? Or should I get a buzz cut like Leo and just let it go au natural?

While I languish in hair coloring purgatory, wondering what to do, Leo and I will suffer our bad hair days together.

The Itchies, Part III

So where is all this talk of itchiness and skin allergies and cones leading to? It was meant to provide a bit of history on Leo’s chronic condition and bring you up to date on his current state of itchiness.

Last year, Leo was itchy well into November. I was beginning to worry that maybe his seasonal allergies were going to become a year-round state of affairs. I did tons of research online and kept coming across glowing recommendations for a product called Solid Gold Seameal (read the reviews on Petco if you don’t believe me).

I decided to give it a last-ditch try and started him on the Seameal in December. It took about a month before I saw a difference in his coat but there it was: the bald patches filled in and his coat was shiny and silky overall.

And how is Leo doing this summer, you ask? Drum roll, please: Here we are in August and Leo has only been to the vet once this summer.

This is a huge improvement over the past two summers, and I believe this miracle of skin and coat improvement is due to the Solid Gold Seameal. Forgive me while I perform a little product endorsement here (you can be damn sure I wouldn’t do this if it didn’t work, and no—I’m not getting kickbacks from the company that manufactures it) but I had tried other supplements and shampoos recommended by pet store owners and vets, to no avail.

The Seameal looks and smells like seaweed that has been dried and pulverized into a powder. At first, I had my doubts that Leo would even eat it. Sure, he eats the poop of other dogs and cats without discernment but when it comes to the stuff I put in his bowl, he can be a bit finicky.

Like when I started adding salmon oil tabs to his meals: at first I cut open the tab and squirted the salmon oil on his food. He gave it a sniff and refused to eat. Then I tried mixing the whole tab in with his raw meat; he would eat every last drop, save for the lonely salmon tab at the bottom of the bowl. Somewhere along the line, though, he decided the tabs weren’t so awful; now his bowl is always empty.

So I’ll keep giving him ½ teaspoon of the Seameal with each meal (though I’ve learned to buy it on Amazon; there are better deals on it there) and keep feeding him the expensive raw meat diet (I rotate between lamb, venison and turkey/chicken patties by Nature’s Variety, and keep taking him to the groomer for therapeutic baths. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that he remains cone-free for the rest of the summer.

And that concludes "The Itchies Trilogy" (I swear).

The Itchies, Part II

Leo’s first summer in Portland was a disaster. After lots of scratching and licking resulted in a visit to the vet, I found out that he had numerous infections. The vet prescribed antibiotics for the infections and steroids for the itching, and so began Leo’s new health regimen.

I squirted cleaner in his ears (though admittedly, most of it just trickled down the side of his furry face, making a mess of his fur, because I was too squeamish to really get down inside his ears). I switched him to a pricey raw meat diet, hoping that real food with no fillers might do the trick. And I dutifully took him to the vet to have his anal sacs regularly expressed. Anal sacs express themselves? This was new to me (and technically, they don’t express themselves—they require someone else to express them).

Eventually the ear infection went away, and so did the staph and anal sac infections. But the overall itching and hot spots proved more stubborn. Several different vets gave me their opinions yet all remained stumped. I spent a fortune on Leo that summer, and still he had little relief from the itching and irritation.

Finally we were referred to a veterinary allergy and dermatology specialist. She remarked that Leo looked very dignified with his gray eyebrows, and took him into a separate exam room. A few moments later they returned.

Her diagnosis? He was most likely allergic to northwest pollens, just like the rest of the population that had moved here from another part of the country (namely, me). “Duh,” I thought. For another $1,000, she could do allergy testing to determine the exact cause of his allergies. I would then be required to give him injections that would, over the course of a year, desensitize him to the allergen(s). And cost lots more money.

I told her I had to think it over, and ushered Leo out the door and into the car where I promptly burst into tears. How could I possibly afford this allergy treatment stuff? And how could I possibly give him regular injections when I had a hard enough time cleaning his ears? Clearly I was a rotten dog owner. Words like “unfit,” “negligent” and “cheap” bounced around in my head as I drove home.

Eventually summer faded into fall and miraculously, Leo’s allergic reactions faded away, too. The itching stopped and his coat became bright and shiny once more—until the following summer, when he exploded with hot spots again. By now I had found a new vet, and this one not only gave him steroids for the itching but also put him in the cone.

Ah, the dreaded cone. Once again, people on the street would point and laugh. At home, we made the requisite jokes (“Son, you’ve got a lampshade on your head.”) Leo wasn’t happy about this new contraption; the cone made it difficult for him to perform everyday tasks. When he tried to hop up onto his couch, the cone would deflect off the couch, sending him back to the floor. Rounding corners took repeated efforts and even smelling flowers was a challenge.
Taking care of Leo in the cone was no treat, either. It was like taking care of a special needs person: after every meal, the inside of his cone was filled with raw meat splatter that I would carefully wipe clean.

Despite my lifelong love of summer and sunshine, I found myself pining for rainy days that would wash away the evil pollens. There had to be a better way!

The Itchies, Part I

I adopted Leo in January 2006. That year, summer arrived early in Portland. It was hot in May—really hot. And with his thick shag of black fur, Leo wasn’t digging it. To make matters worse, I lived in a tiny apartment with only three windows and a ceiling fan to stir the dead air around. On a hot day, we were both miserable in our (oven) den.

So I thought I was doing Leo a favor when I had him shaved. What I didn’t realize was the emotional impact that shaving would have on him. He came home from the groomers looking—how shall I put it?—diminished. Underneath all that gloriously thick fur was the scrawny, wrinkly body of an old man—a scrawny, wrinkly body with a bushy tail and a furry bobble head attached. He looked ridiculous.

I wasn’t the only one who thought so. People on the street would point and laugh when I took him for a walk. He looked ridiculous, and he knew it. Accuse me of anthropomorphizing him, but robbed as he was of his thick, showy fur, he was depressed. I could see it in his eyes and in his body language. In an attempt to cheer him up, I bought him a very macho studded collar. It did little to console him.

And then a cold spell descended on Portland and we were plunged back into rainy winter days. I worried that he would catch cold and scoured the city to find a raincoat. I bought two and returned two; they wouldn’t fit over his giant head. On the chilliest of nights, I swaddled him in an old flannel shirt.

“You look great in flannel!” I told him. “The grunge look really suits you.”
The look in his eyes said, “Bite me.”

As May rolled into June, his fur began to grow back and his spirits lifted. But by July, he was itching like mad. At first I thought it was just the fur growing in, irritating his skin. But the itching persisted. I wondered if he had contracted some strange skin condition from the filthy flood waters in New Orleans that was only now manifesting itself.

Then the licking and chewing began in earnest, mostly in his groin area. I worried that he had the canine equivalent of jock itch. It was disgusting to hear him licking and snorkeling (like a pug, a breed of dog I’m not fond of) until he was literally out of breath and had to come up for air, panting like mad.

My husband (then just a mere boyfriend) said I worried about Leo too much. He said Leo was just doing what dogs do—itch and lick and snorkel.

I ignored him and promptly took Leo to the vet and got a not-so-definitive diagnosis: Leo was allergic to….something. Something in his food? An environmental irritant? My friend Heather was allergic to grass of all things. Was Leo allergic to grass? Whatever it was, it had resulted in an ear infection, an anal sac infection, hot spots (areas where he had chewed away the fur to reveal a bald and bloody spot on his skin) and a staph infection. My poor Leo was a mess!